NZFF

After getting a text from Jon, I trundeled down to NZAA late yesterday evening to find the Polish TU-154 that was making a rare visit at my local airport. After scouring the entire length of the airport, from east to west, I finally found it parked up on the distant heavy stands at the 05 (which was active yesterday) end.

Here are 16 shots I took, both of the Tupolev and other aircraft:

1. Air Freight Convair, parked up in the shadows

2. A kiwi based Dassault Falcon

3. Rear end of a Gulfstream

4. Now it has turned into the light and taxis off for takeoff

5. A Qantas NZ 737 rotating

6. A zoomed in shot of -NEK rotating, off to New Plymouth

7. An Emirates A340 lifting off- this is my favourite shot of the batch

8. Taken mili-seconds later, and slightly out of focus

9. Two 733's on the domestic apron

10. Who was it that said the 1900d was the world's ugliest airliner?

11. Found it! I had to walk for ages down a gravel road, then zoom in lots to get this shot!

12. Rear end, nice tri-jets there. Unfortuantly it wasn't facing the other way, as this would have made a brilliant nose on view.

13. This shot was taken from a field- I think I was the only person to see the odd large circular shaped cargo getting loaded onboard.

14. ZK-HSW coming into land at the helipad

15. Sun down, departure shot

16. In tribute to my ARNZ, a sunset shot.

DAMN!!!!

Trolly you have got some real awesome shots there!!! Particularly the second to last one of the two 747's parked up with the Beech in the backround

~ZK-KAG~

Trolly wrote: Who was it that said the 1900d was the world's ugliest airliner?

me
that's a nice time of day to shoot- unique lighting without it being too dark

Those large circular thing look a bit like engine bungs..... cant think of what else they would be...

kiwiflyboy wrote: Those large circular thing look a bit like engine bungs..... cant think of what else they would be...

wow nice guess i was wondering for ages! it would make sense as the conveyer belt is going right up to the engine, and i'm pretty sure theres no freight door there. Awesome pics by the way Trolly!

Nice Trolly, pleased you found her. You didn't happen to see he takeoff or did she overnight? Having said that I guess you would have photos if you saw her take-off, so ignore that

I like the last two ones

Who was it that said the 1900d was the world's ugliest airliner?

yes I see what you mean, it is rather ugly, well I think the correct word would be unique

Brillinat trolly

James

Those large circular thing look a bit like engine bungs

Ahh that makes sense, perhaps they were preping it for departure.

You didn't happen to see he takeoff or did she overnight?

I wish! Nah, I stayed around for about 20 minutes after those shots were taking and didn't even here polan mentioned once on the scanner, plus it was getting real dark and no light enough to take photos. With aircraft taking off from 05R, it would have been too high to hear once it passed over my area, so I can't tell you if it has left yet or not.

Nice shots - that Gulfstream looks like Glufstream's 550 demo aircraft - I wonder who they demoing it to?

The Convair in the top photo is little different to the other Convairs in the country as it is a strechted version.

Well you get one mark for perseverance!
Maybe you'll get your Tu shot yet.
Great lighting to your credit, Andrew.

Nice photos there Trolly.

I was just deleting my left-over shots and came across this one, looks quite peaceful I thought (for an international airport ramp anyway):

Love the shot with the 2 747's in it with the aircraft leaving behind them! Got it in a larger version by any chance??

Cheers,
James

Sorry James- I deleted the original!

Here are 14 more shots (1.42mb worth) I took at AA this afternoon- some of them suffer from over sharpening. Nothing too interesting here as the wind was blowing in favour of 05R...

Really good pics trolly! Interesting to see a 738 here, do you get them in AKL often?

Interesting to see a 738 here, do you get them in AKL often?

Nope, I havn't seen a QF 738 before in AA. I think the usually fly B767's and B747's on the Trans Tasman routes.

Trolly wrote: Nope, I havn't seen a QF 738 before in AA. I think the usually fly B767's and B757's on the Trans Tasman routes.

OK but are you sure they have 757's? if they do i'm either blind or stupid

*747's

Some awesome shots there Trolly

Matt